Happy Friday from the Fat Dispatch! Usually on Fridays, I send out a short missive outlining some kind of discussion about my experience of the world as a fat woman.
Titling this particular post with a question mark (Fat Patriot?) indicates that I’m not so declarative about this one, and I’ll tell you why.
It’s no secret that since 2016, I’ve been begging people to stop supporting 45/47. He is a terrible person and his leadership of our country has been a veritable poop storm. But the Christian Nationalism that paved the way for his election is honestly much more concerning to me. Christians I know, the ones who taught me that character matters, the ones who instilled in me a love for the Bible and its message of salvation for the poor and oppressed…these Christians, turns out, have worshipped access to power more than proximity to the weak and broken.
Christian Nationalism has subverted the message of Christianity from the cross—a message of humble death for the sake of others—to a triumphalism, wherein we have power in this world by the world’s terms. I’m afraid that we’re headed to a reality where the Church is wedded to the State. I don’t believe this was the motivation of the founding fathers and mothers of our country, for whom the separation of Church and State was paramount.
The threat of Christian Nationalism is intimately partnered with white supremacy, and before my eyes, I see state-sanctioned racism progressing in real time as people of color—specifically brown people—are arrested and sent to concentration camps because of what they look like and where they were born.
It’s hard to believe in the United States when things are this bad.
In a few weeks, I’ll enter the classroom as a 5th-grade reading teacher. As I’ve spent time in my new classroom, I’ve stared at the flags hanging from the wall. The red, white, and blue of the American flag and the Texas flag make me simultaneously mad and sad. What do I tell the children about this world that we’re all surviving in?
Every day, we’ll pledge allegiance to these flags. How can I do that when things are so broken?
I have to look to the vision of the United States, not her reality right now. And I don’t just mean the vision of the founding fathers—they excluded women and anyone but white people from theirs. I’m talking about the vision of America that shimmers in the dark, a place where anyone can make it. A land of beauty not in spite of but because of her immigrants and her diversity. A land that will have to grapple with her history of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism, but one that I believe will overcome these ugly realities.
That’s the United States that I’m going to teach for, that I’m going to tell my students about, that I’m going to pledge to.
What is your vision for the United States? How does that affect your day-to-day life?
In solidarity and peace,
Amanda Martinez Beck